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It is called a “red mirage” or “blueshift.”
This is a recent phenomenon in which a clear Republican lead immediately after polls close on election night is erased by the counting of mail-in votes later in the evening or the day after election day.
Former President Donald Trump cited a red mirage to support his baseless claims of election fraud, but the real impact is an increase in mail-in voting and often unique rules about when people can vote.
On the night of the 2020 election, November 3, when most Americans went to bed, the final results were by no means clear.
It was still too early in the race between then-President Trump and current President Joe Biden to call the key states of Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
The next few days will be dramatic as they monitor vote counting in those states. Georgia’s vote count did not reflect Biden’s lead until the early morning hours of November 6, but as CNN’s Phil Mattingly showed viewers on the magic wall, a small number of votes were counted. and had an impact on close elections.
CNN was able to predict that Biden would win on November 7, four days after Election Day, but vote counting is still continuing. An analysis by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that counties won by Biden were on average slower to count than counties won by Trump.
There was also a blue shift in 2016, but it was not conclusive. As CNN’s Marshall Cohen wrote, the day after Election Day, when Hillary Clinton offered to concede and concede defeat to the American people, she was still behind in the popular vote. The trickle of votes wasn’t enough to carry her to the White House, but it was more than enough to give her a multi-million vote advantage in the popular vote.
In 2020, the states with the slowest counts were heavily Democratic states such as California, which offered mail-in ballots to all registered voters. This means that even if the results of the presidential election are not delayed, a blue shift in the popular vote could still occur.
News networks such as CNN may predict a winner when it is clear who will win, but it is important to remember that the race is not officially certified until later. Certification deadlines vary by state, but all states have a deadline of Dec. 11, 2024, to complete recounts if necessary and resolve disputes over presidential results.
There are signs that things could move faster in some key states.
In Georgia, a new election law could prompt more people to vote early in person instead of by mail, speeding up the process of counting mail-in votes. North Carolina will no longer accept mail-in ballots if they arrive after Election Day.
The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks election laws, outlines potential challenges.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) recently told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he expects the majority of ballots to be processed and counted within hours after polls close. He said he was doing it.
“All early voting and all early received votes must report results by 8:00 p.m., meaning 70%, perhaps 75% of all total votes must be counted no later than election night. It will be reported by 8pm,” he said. But even if the Georgia election were as close to 2024 as it was in 2020, the outcome may not yet be clear.
Raffensperger was asked if it would take a week to decide on a winner in Georgia.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “What we are waiting for is the overseas ballots arriving by Friday at the latest and that will be the final number. And we just have to see if that makes a difference to the total number of votes cast. .”
Other states, including key battleground states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, do not allow election officials to process ballots by Election Day. But compared to the pandemic-era 2020 election, more experience and fewer ballots to process could speed up counting in those locations as well. The Center for Election Innovation & Research has compiled various rules and schedules for processing mail-in ballots.
In Michigan, another key state where ballots could be processed before Election Day, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson also took questions from CBS about how long it would take to count ballots. . Benson, a Democrat, said he would like to know the results by Wednesday, Nov. 6, the day after voting closes.
“We always prioritize accuracy and security over efficiency,” she said.
If margins are tight, it may still take several days.
Pennsylvania’s top elections official, Republican Al Schmidt, recently told NPR that people need to trust the system after polls close.
“In 2020… there was a period between the polls closing at 8 p.m. on Election Day and the campaign being called as a vulnerable time when people were trying to undermine confidence in the results,” he said. In the end, after all the votes were counted, Pennsylvania’s results weren’t that close.
As anyone old enough to remember 2000 can attest, the closest elections can take a long time. Florida’s election was a close one, but a flaw in the punch voting system led to controversial “dangling chads” on some ballots.
The results of that year’s election lasted more than a month, 36 days before the U.S. Supreme Court halted a partial recount in Florida, effectively handing the election to George W. Bush. Then-Vice President Al Gore conceded on Dec. 13, his defeat making him one of only three vice presidents to oversee the counting of electoral votes. Harris could become the fourth. Or the first to oversee his own victory since George H.W. Bush.
Just as no one knows who will win the 2024 election, it’s also not entirely clear how long it will take to determine this year’s winner.
